Is pharmacy more stressful than other well paying jobs such as engineering, finance, IT ? Takes several years for education and after that, a tough learning curve on the job. Lapse in concentration can hurt you big big time. It is high stakes and rightly so. Not really complaining but have regrets sometimes when I see friends graduating from those jobs mentioned with little/no debt, finding work right way, not having pressure to hurt or kill someone by a mistake and end up ruining the long career you worked so hard for. Being in 100 k debt doesn't really help with this green grass syndrome. Your perspective ?
Is pharmacy inherently more stressful than other professions ?
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I would say more stress in terms of minute by minute time pressure but less stress as a career because the pathway and the expectations are much more clearly delineated than in an office job .
I truly believe that pharmacy is about 5-10x more FUN than office jobs and even more so than any healthcare job .. so , there is definitely the work hard play hard mentality , you get immediate feedback and immediate results from your effort every day , whereas you might be working on your own on a long project for weeks or months in other professions with little recognition or feedback , which in my mind is much harder to deal with. In pharmacy you have a real time scorecard
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It's only as stressful as you make it. I've seen pharmacists freak out and stress over minor things, I've seen Phil Jackson-like Zen Buddhism in the middle of a code blue and the cart is running out of epi.
Thank you. It's an interesting perspective. I think I will be bored with that kind of office job. Conversely, emergency medicine type full time job isn't for me either. A happy middle would be best.
I'm trying to break into informatics personally. I work a lot of critical care and it can be exciting, but mostly I just find it stressful.
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It's funny in that I did a stint doing med safety/med error tracking and I found the administrative and regulatory pressures to be greater than when I work critical care. Part of it probably had to do with a higher comfort level working with the latter, but it's kind of interesting.
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I can tell you this.. if you are at CVS, it will definitely be much more stressing than any other usual situation.
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stress....I may be opening up a new discussion soon enough over the newer outlier stresses I have done thus far in pharmacy school....wife getting deported while enduring finals and a child at home that couldnt go with her....so, now i figure: get the wife back or stay in pharmacy school or wait 1 1/2 years to come back (since i did good this semester).....sry just somewhat venting on here lol .... all in all any professional doctorate is tough in healthcare.....as mentioned .... its as stressful as you make it....you cant understand sadly until you endure it.
I had a drunk guy yell and threaten me while working as a tech and the pharmacist didn't do shiz about it. And I am a 5 foot nothing petite female. The pharmacist used to let the pharm techs handle all the routine ugliness. He was the owner too so not sure what his excuse was to not call the cops. He was a Nice guy but very passive. I doubt I'll face anything as stressful and scary as that in the future.
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I don't know, it's funnier just to agree with everything they say and let them go on their merry way after. It's only stressful if you make it stressful.
But yeah, I completely agree with the CVS stress level being pretty high, especially with the drive-thru.
But yeah, I completely agree with the CVS stress level being pretty high, especially with the drive-thru.
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The level of stress you have depends on you. My engineer friend seems a lot less stressed than me since he is not rushed like I am. The constant rush of retail can add to stress however there is never a boring day in retail as I always tell my technicians. Some days are bad and some are good. There will always be one bad day. It would be pretty hard to kill someone over a missfill or even actually hurt them as long as it is caught early on.
I think sometimes because it's what we do everyday, we lose sight of other stressful jobs. I don't think pharmacy is as stressful as other professions or is the most stressful even, we are also well compensated but I doubt anyone would agree with that.
I do think pharmacists are really complacent in that they always complain about ****ty job conditions but never do anything about it.
I do think pharmacists are really complacent in that they always complain about ****ty job conditions but never do anything about it.
Our stress to salary ratio is way out of balance compared to other health professions. I sometimes complain about a stressful, busy day at work where I get a lot of phone calls from nurses needing meds stat. Then I take a walk around the ICU and see the poor nurses, many of whom get paid half of what I make and have to deal with the actual patients. Blood, guts, poop, death, tears, screams, curses. That really puts it into perspective.
Of course this all goes out of the window when you are talking about retail.
Of course this all goes out of the window when you are talking about retail.
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Can't remember the last time I was stressed at work.
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I look at it this way coming from a retail POV, I would assume there's more stress than other high-ed jobs since it is literally half retail and half healthcare you get double the problems associated with each.
Being in stressful situations and dealing with it is a skill set required to become a retail pharmacist.
Being in stressful situations and dealing with it is a skill set required to become a retail pharmacist.
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Credentials please. If you have never worked as a pharmacist (especially in retail) then I really don't think you should be taking shots at us. If you are a pharmacist, you should update your status and we can have a real conversation.
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This is so sad. I have been hearing about similar situations recently, why is the US deporting spouses of citizens/legal residents? Seems like there are much bigger problems for our government to be dealing with.
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Decent engineering and finance require smarts, and I find are innately more interesting and masculine. In retail pharmacy you are always waiting on and being interrupted by people
IT from what I've heard is actually pretty chill. You may get to travel (which you may or may not like) though of course who knows, there may be some mystery problem which defies resolution. Plus smart hackers
IT from what I've heard is actually pretty chill. You may get to travel (which you may or may not like) though of course who knows, there may be some mystery problem which defies resolution. Plus smart hackers
This is wha one reason why I'm pursuing pharmacy IT. Tired of the egoes and attitude in critical care.
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Intrigued you mention this, we met as undergrads before we got our bachelors (she was a J-visa status). Under this, simply marrying a U.S. citizen does not cut it... Oh and heres my update : withdrew from pharmacy school, planning on enlisting in the military (army) as a pharmacist specialist which will help secure my wife to come back and help with a steady check with housing / health benefits (we are expecting our second child in april). Problem is, its at 5 year contract, but GI Bill will cover MOST of my pharmacy debt (should i get instate and even apply again). Now my problem is I could go in as a commissioned officer and make more bucks with my degree, but i dont want my science background and pharm experience go to complete waste in five years....eh, Love comes with a price...Just a journey in our life to see what will come next
